On your feet! H. C. Andersen's maiden trip into literary space

Henk van der Liet

Resumé

Already during his lifetime, H. C. Andersen was an international literary celebrity and a wellknownauthor through the vast proliferation of his work. Through his travels, Andersen wasable to cross and transgress spatial, temporal and social borders and expand his internationalsocial network far beyond his home country. While travelling Andersen became profoundlyaware of the fact that he represented two fundamentally different modalities of travel, as heon the one hand embodied the quintessential nineteenth century bourgeois traveler, while heon the other hand, as part of his personal background, inescapably was connected to itsopposite: the underlying social image of the tramp. This article takes a closer look at HansChristian Andersen’s first book-length literary work, Fodreise fra Holmens Canal til Østpynten afAmager i Aarene 1828 og 1829 (1829), offering special attention to the meaning of the themeof travel – notably travel on foot – understanding Fodreise as a liminal work in the evolutionof Andersen’s oeuvre.